The Creep Behind the Camera was an actual filmmaker named Vic Savage; a real scumbag whose only real skill was in his uncanny ability to convince the residents of 1960 Glendale, California that he was making the biggest, the BEST monster movie ever made! The true story of Vic Savage, aka Art Nelson and the making of his monster opus The Creeping Terror (1964) is told in the narrative dark-comedy The Creep Behind the Camera. A hilarious and wholly disturbing look at human nature and delusional demagoguery, The Creep Behind the Camera is a roller coaster ride that takes a nostalgic but cautionary look at the era of drive-in cinema at its very worst.

Directed By:

Pete Schuermann

Produced By:

Nancy Theken, Kyle Woodiel

Written By:

Pete Schuermann

Main Cast:

Josh Phillips, Jodi Lynn Thomas, Bill LeVasseur and Laurel Harris

About the Director

Pete Schuermann is a well-established Emmy-award winning filmmaker with numerous film festival acceptances for narrative feature, documentary and short films that affirm his credibility as a solid visual storyteller. Pete was born on Long Island and is currently a resident of Monument, Colorado. In 2005, Pete was approached by Disney to direct and ...read more

About the Director

Pete Schuermann is a well-established Emmy-award winning filmmaker with numerous film festival acceptances for narrative feature, documentary and short films that affirm his credibility as a solid visual storyteller. Pete was born on Long Island and is currently a resident of Monument, Colorado. In 2005, Pete was approached by Disney to direct and edit Disneyland: Then, Now and Forever, a retrospective piece celebrating Disneyland’s 50th anniversary. Following that, he completed the national-acclaimed documentary HAZE (featuring Robin Wright-Penn), which graphically examined the beer-soaked party scene that permeates the national University and College environment. Next up was the narrative feature The Creep Behind the Camera, an edgy dark comedy/docudrama and told the story about the making of The Creeping Terror, arguably the worst monster movie ever made. When I first saw The Creeping Terror, not only was I entertained by the extraordinary ineptitude of the film, I was in awe of the fact that I had not at least heard something about it. Being an avid fan of the genre I felt I had comprehensive knowledge of pretty much every monster movie ever made, which of course was not so hard at that time. Not until Harry and Michael Medved’s infamous book “The Golden Turkey Awards” was I able to learn at least some bare-bones insight into the production. The book told of the infamous AJ Nelson, the scam associated with the film and insights from some of the disgruntled participants. In fact, in their book there is a picture of the monster stuffed into the back of a pickup truck driving down Hollywood Blvd as part of a publicity stunt. It was this iconic image that first gave me the idea for The Creep Behind the Camera. That part of the production history makes for one of the funniest sequences in the film. The final pieces of the story for The Creep Behind the Camera was provided by AJ Nelson’s first wife Lois Wiseman who discusses in graphic detail her life with the psychotic director in her autobiographic book “Hollywood Con-man.” As it turns out, the real monster was behind the camera!